Moving On
by benedict-pumpkin-patch
Summary: There was a red string of fate tied around Cecil and Carlos. It seems that somebody cut a large snip right in the center. Cecilos breakup. Cecil's POV.


Moving on.

It's such a strange phrase.

I mull over the words sometimes, stuck in the silence of my mind and the emptiness of the apartment (not a condo) where he used to be. The space seems so much bigger, when I thought of it as cramped before. It's almost as if he was never even here, as if he was a mere hallucination, a mirage in the desert heat. But I know he was here at one point. I remember the way his voice sounded in my ear, saying **_Cecil, Cecil, wake up. It's time to be up._**

It was like that every morning.

He would softly, gently wake me. I would stumble out of bed into the kitchenette where I would find he had made coffee, and occasionally that the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your House had stapled more things (paper, pineapples, sewing machines, canisters of tear gas) to the ceiling.

Our life together was a smooth oiled machine, a routine that I happily could have repeated over and over until the day I finally earned my death. How could moving on be a reason he would cite? It was Carlos. He was logical, on top of everything all at once. It seemed like he was happy. What did I do wrong?

Was I not exciting enough? I know it's quite a small, boring town we have here, but I tried my best to fufill him.

**_I just think, Cecil, that it may be time for us to move on._**

My thoughts buffeted my brain quickly and relentlessly like a hail storm. My conscience spoke to me cruelly, in a way that it only had when Carlos was presumed dead and all I could do was sit and sob in my booth._ Move on? Move on to what? There might be a better life for Carlos out there, but for you, there isn't. There's only your radio show. You're static. You stay the same. You repeat and repeat and repeat like a broken record, scratching and bleeding until you can't be used anymore, and then you're gone, dust and ashes in the wind. That's all you are without Carlos._

**_I might come back to Night Vale one day for a visit, you know. If that happens, we'll be friends, right?_**

I could only nod, dry-mouthed. His eyes were distant and unfocused, staring into a future that I wouldn't be a part of. I wanted to grab his shoulders and tie him down, scream at him, tell him everything that I was thinking. I wanted to punish him for even thinking of leaving me, for even considering abandoning me. I wanted to chain him up and own him and drag him everywhere so that he couldn't leave me. I wanted him to be _mine, all mine._

But I swallowed my urges and I shook my head slowly up and down.

**_I really appreciate how well you're taking this, Cecil. I'll be gone by Sunday._**

I didn't take it well. As soon as he left, I cried and cried and cried as if the angels had chosen me. It was hard, harder than usual for me look in mirrors.

It was so soon after he'd escaped from the desert otherworld. He found the secret to creating an oak door. All you have to do is think of something that ties you to Night Vale. Most people who had been born here know what ties them, so they left easily. But for Carlos, he had to consciously think of something.

His something was me.

It was so sweet that I had been the single factor tying him here. I was overjoyed and teared; he had been gone for a year, and then suddenly he wasn't gone anymore.

That feeling didn't last.

It's ironic that the reason he was even here was also the reason he left. Maybe I was ugly, maybe I wasn't smart enough, maybe he only pitied me from the beginning. I don't know much.

All I know is the cold patch on the sheets where his warmth once was. All I know is the boxed set of Star Trek DVDs he left behind. All I know is the feeling of waking up during the middle of the night, shaky and face stained with tears, calling out and hearing no answer.

Right now, as I drink the coffee I made for myself, the sun rises against all odds. I slip off the barstool, still holding the mug in my hand. Sliding the curtain away for a brief second, the light blinds me. I take a hesitant sip.

Perhaps I should be moving on as well.


End file.
